Showing off the power of dual fan: Thermalright T-Rad2 GPU cooler review
◆ Introduction of Thermalright T-Rad2
Thermalright T-Rad2
The name “T-Rad2” originates from “Twin Radiators”. Maybe it refers its capability of installing two fans. The size of T-Rad2 is 228*104*24mm. The length of 228mm is almost equal to a display card PCB (the length of Radeon HD 4850’s PCB is 235mm, FYI). This is the longest VGA cooler by now. but T-Rad2 is as thin as 24mm, it looks quite exquisite in general.
Comparison：T-Rad2 (left) and HR-03GT (right)
The biggest problem of Thermalright HR-03 series is its height. The cooler is already 48mm tall without fan installed, and as high as 68mm with fan installed, which affects the installation of other PCI devices. T-Rad2 is flat, with half height of HR-03, which is more beneficial to the building of multi-card SLI/Crossfire system. T-Rad2 weighs 360g, lighter than HR-03(398g) (The weight of fan is not included).
T-Rad2 has 83 cooling fins, and effective fin area is 1700cm2.
T-Rad2 is just like a staved HR-03 with six 6mm heat pipes. But, T-Rad2 is as long as 166mm (effective fin part), while HR-03 Series is only 80mm (effective fin part). The amount of fin is also increased: T-Rad2 has 83; HR-03 only has 34. Both GPU cooler’s fin area is at the same level, but contact interface between heat pipe and fin of T-Rad2 is almost as twice as HR-03 Series, which also means T-Rad2 is more efficient in transferring heat from heat pipe to the cooling fins.
The heat pipe of T-Rad2 is welded with fins
It seems the fin part of T-Rad2 is bigger than HR-03, and this illusion is probably caused by its flat shape. Actually, the fin part of T-Rad2 is about 1700 cm2, while that of HR-03 is 1840 cm2. However, the advantage of T-Rad2 is its depth of fins is between 10-15mm, which has higher utility of air stream. On the contrary, the depth of fins of HR-03 is above 20mm, needs air stream with stronger air pressure. Furthermore, the interface between heat pipe and fins of T-Rad2 is much bigger than HR-03, so we can expected that T-Rad2 exceeds HR-03 in cooling performance comparison.
Accessories of T-Rad2 (maybe a little different from final edition)
As Thermalright’s tradition, the sales edition of T-Rad2 won’t be attached with fan. You can choose to install two 92mm fans or one 120mm fan. 92mm fan can be fixed on the cooler by screws, but the installation of 120mm fan will need buckles which are included in the accessories.
T-Rad2 only has one installation hole location set
Different from other VGA coolers with several hole locations to fit with different cards, T-Rad2 only has one hole location set for installation. The pitch-row is 53mm. It’s compatible with mainstream display cards such as NVIDIA GeForce G9X and ATI Radeon HD 3800/4800 Series, but cannot applied to the ones like GeForce GTX200. Below is more detailed compatibility list for reference.
To the GFX cards like Radeon HD4800, GeForce 8800GT/9800GTX, fanless setting T-Rad2 is not recommended. But to the cards like GeForce 9600GT, can it the fanless with T-Rad2? We will show you in our review.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: a closer look at T-Rad2
Page 3: Installation
Page 4: Multi-card issue
Page 5: Test setup and remarks
Page 6: The performance of T-Rad2
Page 7: Fanless with T-Rad2
Page 8: Who to challenge T-Rad2
August 18th, 2008 at 5:00 am
[...] FurMark has been used to overload the GPU. [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Detailed and professional review as always.
Hope TR will improve it.
Anyway, an awesome cooler!
August 21st, 2008 at 8:08 pm
You have made a vital mistake in your review of the Thermalright TRad 2 VGA cooler. You have calculated the total height of the graphics card and cooler to be 58mm, and then stated that this won’t fit in the 55mm space between the slots of a 2 x PCi slot motherboard. However, when calculating the 58mm dimension you have included the 11mm for the bolts, which protrude at the rear of card. Therefore the space required between slots is actually 24mm (heatsink) + 20mm (fan) + 3mm (debatable for PCB) = 47mm
August 21st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Ahhh no. I see…..
The bolts on the second card would conflict with the fan[s] on the first.
Doh! Sorry
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:06 am
BTW use the “start-Xtreme-Burning.bat” start file with Furmark, it makes the cards ever hotter!
August 26th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Where could one find a 92mm x 20mm thick fan. Google tells me no such beast exists.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
@wheatbread:
AVC have a 9220 fan. And i believe other company also have this type
http://www.avc.com.tw/china/products/DC-FAN-home.htm
August 30th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
so how thoes this compare to HR03GT + 120mm fan? I bet its a close score.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
A great review! I’ve been waiting to see some real-world results from this cooler for some time now.
@wheatbread, I’m sure a standard 25mm thick fan will fit just fine. 92mmx20mm fans are very rare.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
[...] Page 1: Introduction Page 2: обзор кулера [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 6:11 am
on the bolts at rear comment , potentially simple fix is just to trim them down and replace the knurled nuts with standard nuts , this would free up a good 5mm , ill test the theory when i get my second 4870 later on this year , ordered one of these babys from usa this week
November 13th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Are there any sites that you can buy those thin 92mm fans from? The link from That Linux Guy is in Chinese and there is no were to purchase from them. Google returns no results for the DA9220 part number.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:01 am
You incorrectly state that the HR-03GT cooler can only use a 92mm fan. I have attached a 120mm fan to the HR-03GT with a little bit of modification of the wire clips.
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